User:Ws1081/Yang Zhang



Yang Zhang, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States.

Zhang is a research fellow for the Next Generation of Hazards and Disasters Researchers Program funded by the National Science Foundation. He is also a research fellow of the Peking University (China) Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Center for Land Use Policy and Urban Development and of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center.

Education
Zhang grew up in Beijing and studied until 2000 at Peking University in Beijing, from which he graduated with a bachelors degree in Geography and a masters degree in Environmental Planning, he then went to Texas A&M University, where he earned a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Science in 2006.

Research
Yang Zhang's research concentration is in environmental planning, climate change adaptation, and sustainable development; with an emphasis in the area of distaster mitigation and recovery. His research is primarily quantitative with expertise in econometrics and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). His research has both domestic and international focuses. In the United States, he studied housing recovery, hazard mitigation policy implemenation in Miami-Dade County, Florida. He is involved in developing algorithms for MAEViz. , a scenario based seismic risk assessment system which provides models to estimate physical damage, economic losses, transportation disruption, population dislocation, sheltering needs and the effectiveness of mitigation strategies. Internationally, his current research looks at redevelopment and housing reconstruction after the 8.0 Earthquake in the Sichuan Province.

Yang Zhang has worked research projects for Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University, the Mid-American Earthquake Center of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and the Beijing Urban Planning Commission (China).

Awards
In 2010, Zhang was named a member of a the collaborative proposal: Developing An Intergovernmental Management Framework For Sustainable Recovery Following Catastrophic Disasters which received a grant from the National Science Foundation to analyze the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake to determine what can government do to ensure post-disaster recovery is fast, fair, efficient and sustainable. Zhang is also a Next Generation Research Fellow in Disasters and Hazards, a National Science Foundation funded fellowship program. Other awards include grants from the Mid-America Earthquake Center, Texas A&M University, Virginia Sea Grant, and Virginia Tech.

Publications
Zhang has co-authored "Planning Integration for Coordinated Urban Growth in China". as well as a number of other books. Zhang's publications also appear in top planning journals such as the Journal of the American Planning Association, the Journal of Planning Education and Research, and Environment and Behavior.